


Tuck

by The Missus (schwarmerei1)



Series: The Paper Series [3]
Category: E.R.
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schwarmerei1/pseuds/The%20Missus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation with Anspaugh provides Kim with some perspective<br/>Spoilers: Up to 7.22 “Rampage”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuck

**Author's Note:**

> This series was written between _Where the Heart is_ and _Rampage_ and begins when Kim gets Kerry’s letter.  Between Lori and the letter, the angst was unbearable, and I stopped work on the first series to get this all down and out.

  
  


_ Kim’s abbreviated laugh came out as a gulp that made her eyes sting.  She nodded and turned to claim some space for them. _

Hungry as she was, Kim only picked at her food.  The pop was cold and sweet; just what she needed.  The sugar and caffeine hit her system together in a welcome and familiar rush.  Kerry sipped her coffee thoughtfully.

Kim broke their guardedly companionable silence.  “I’ve read your letter a dozen times.”  

Kerry held on to that silence a moment longer.  “Fitting; I wrote it about that often, too.”  She stared at the grit in the bottom of her cup.  How was it that instant coffee could leave grounds?

“It freaked me out a little, Kerry.”

“M’hm.”  Kerry had no idea what was coming.  Seeing Lori that morning had erased every happy potential outcome from her frame of reference.  As of then, she had been sifting through a whole new set of options.  To be sure, she had written that letter expecting that Kim was no longer interested in her as a lover; it was not an effort to woo her, but instead, to temper Kim’s pain.  To temper both their pain.

But somehow, it was different now, knowing that Kim had truly moved on.  In an odd way, seeing Lori had been freeing for Kerry; at least she knew something for sure now.  But the bitterness of her disappointment made her admit that some bit of her had been a stalwart optimist through it all: some sliver of Kerry had been holding out against not only hope, but logic, and had believed until this morning that Kim might have wanted her again.

“No, honestly, it wrecked me.  I... I thought I knew what I wanted.”

Kerry’s quizzical expression asked the question for her.  “Closure, Kerry.  I thought I wanted closure.”

“But?”

“But now I’m not so sure.  I’m... I’m sorry, I don’t want to lead you on, Kerry, or hurt either of us any more than we are.  But something’s gone in me, Kerry... something... something that really needed that closure feels gone.”

Kerry toyed with the spent rim of her paper cup.  “And what’s left, Kim?”

“Something stronger, I think.  I’m not sure.  I... I have to sit with this, Kerry.”

Kerry nodded and raised her palms to Kim.  “Sit.  By all means, Kim, sit with this as long as you’d like.  I’m not going anywhere.”  Kerry knew that this was the point where she should smile, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.  “Just let me know, Kim, what your choice is.”  Kerry was thinking of Lori, but Kim’s mind was weighing harder things.

A clear thought shot to the surface of Kim’s musing.  “I want to have dinner with you Friday, Kerry.  Are you free?”

“Supper?  Friday?  I... I think I can do that, Kim.”

Kim rose to go.  “I’ll make reservations somewhere, then.  I can’t promise you anything, Kerry... except that I will be thinking about what you wrote from now until then.”

“That’s more than I ever would have asked from you, Kim.  You know that.”

“I know.”

“Goodnight, Kim.”

“You don’t want a ride?”

“I don’t.”

“Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”

__________________________

The week crept by for both of them.  

Kerry kept busy with work and turned her house inside out with spring cleaning.  The stereo was never quiet.  She decided to pretend that her part of this process was over, save for the hearing of the final word from Kim.  She had wrestled deep demons to be with Kim all, and lived through a rematch to write that letter.  Her guts had imploded when she saw Lori’s morning-after glow.  Kerry had nothing more to lose.  

She began to settle more back into her old self, a little more distant emotionally, calmer, less perturbable.  Seeming on the surface to be a successful coping maneuver, she knew now what it cost to live that way; Kerry’s smoldering passion was burning itself out for lack of tending.  She was tired enough to give it only a sad passing glance, and was on some level looking forward to it going away altogether, thinking its absence might feel like peace.

Kim caught herself biting her nails one morning.  Shocked at finding herself so regressed, she took Donald Anspaugh up on his offer to take lunch with her.  She didn’t show him the letter, but she described its gist as “sensitive, provocative, and mature in perspective.”   Donald wondered to himself if a test to identify instinctive tendencies toward intense analytical processing of chaotic emotional states might not be able to pick out lesbians with quite a high degree of accuracy.   His smile at Kim looked more bemused than anything.  

Kim wondered aloud about the relative risks she was considering, about how likely each of the options she saw would be to hurt her, to hurt Kerry, or to work out for both of them.  Don had had enough process. 

“Do you still love her, Kim?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

“Oh, Don.. how much time do you have?”  Kim laughed ruefully.  

“I’m serious.”

“Well, she could really cost me my job this time.  No... that’s not fair.  She didn’t risk my job, she just...”

“Just what, Kim?”

“She abandoned me.  She left me.  She could up and leave me again, Don, anytime it got bad, she could leave.  And I don’t think I could bear it.”

“What’d be keeping _you_ from leaving _her_ , Kim?”  Don took a bite of his sandwich.

“Hmm?  Why would I leave her?”

“I don’t know, Kim.  I asked you that.”

“Okay... I wouldn’t leave her because I can’t imagine anything that would scare me that badly.  If I were committed to her, then I wouldn’t leave her.  I don’t do that.”

“Oh?  Kerry’s your first lover?”  

“Well, no...”  Kim blushed.

“So you have left women before.”  Another bite of sandwich.

“Well, yeah, but not like that... I mean, we’re still friends, lots of them... I didn’t abandon them.”

“Would they all agree, Kim?”

Kim shook her head, smiling ruefully.  “Probably not all of them.  Touché.”

“Okay.  So you no longer hold yourself as Kerry Weaver’s moral superior.  Are we together there, Kim?”  the glint in his eye warmed the coolness of his statement.  

Kim thought about that.  “Yeah.  I guess we are.”

“Good.  Very good.  Now tell me, Kim, what Kerry Weaver has the power to take away from you that you cannot survive the loss of.”

Kim was glad to be given an easy task; she had been in the data-gathering phase of this answer for the past few weeks, after all.  She ticked off a short list: “My dignity, my faith in myself, my sanity, my trust of other women, my sense of attractiveness, my peace of mind, my on-the-job comfort....”

Donald held up his hand.  “Kim, aren’t you running on baseline levels of all those things right now?”

“Well, yes, exactly.”  

“I hardly call that ‘unsurvivable.’”  

Kim blinked.

“You _are_ surviving, Kim.  Of course you’re upset, of course you hurt, honey.  But you’re going to be fine, and you know it.  You have the wherewithal to get over this, and you will heal from this, whether you end up with Kerry or you don’t.  Agreed?”

“Agreed,” mumbled Kim.

“Now,” Donald finished his sandwich and picked up his Snapple. “Now, suppose we look at your statement from another side.  You tell me why you’re trying so hard to resist a woman who holds that much power over you.” 

“I... I don’t want a repeat of any of the... horrible things that happened.  I don’t want to agree to that pattern of pain in my life.”

“Don’t make Kerry bigger than she is, Kim.  I know she’s quite a whirlwind, believe me.  But she’s only one woman, Kim, and you weren’t with her long enough to establish a pattern of pain.  I hear more than one partner behind that statement, Kim.  This fear I’m hearing in you, is any of that older than Kerry?”

Kim sat still, twiddling her chips and thinking.  She crunched a small handful thoughtfully, chewed and swallowed.  “Yeah, Don.  Some of it is.”

“Keep it current, Kim.  You know how to do that, I know.”  Dr. Anspaugh’s pager went off.  He sighed as he flicked off the sound.  “I will be truly delighted when I am sufficiently retired to hand this damned thing over,” he grunted, getting out of his chair.

Kim stood to give him a brief hug.  “Thank you, Don.  I’ll think about what you said.”

“Anytime, Kim.  It’s really good to have you back.  It will be even better when you actually finish returning to us.”  

____________________

Friday evening Kerry felt strangely calm, but not the mellow calm she was trying to attain, more the sickly jaundiced calm that precedes a tornado.  She could practically taste the ozone around her as the time crept slowly toward evening.  She raced home and showered, changing her mind about outfits twice, settling on a black lambswool low-cut sweater that clung softly against her curves, and grey slacks.  She buffed her nails and worried about her hair, not that there was much she could do to save a bad haircut.  She’d never go to that place again, she decided.  Oh well.  The mousse had helped, and it only had to look good for a couple of hours.

At home, Kim was fretfully accusing herself of all sorts of moral turpitude, but she decided to wear her favorite black dress, a silky pullover that draped like liquid over her.  It came to a bit above her knees and the heavy hem of it brushed her right where she liked it to.  She changed her shoes out for flats when she remembered that Kerry wouldn’t be in heels.  In the interests of modesty she added a small cameo choker to draw the eyes upward, at least a little bit higher than her cleavage.  She swallowed against the ribbon, enjoying the weight of the carving.

Kim had made reservations at a small Italian place that was supposed to have the best wine list in town.  They met there, shared feathery gnocchi with hot pepper sauce and a hefty rosso that practically needed a snifter to hold all its bouquet.  Kerry ran her finger up and down the fold of her napkin and Kim did the same to the stem of her glass.  By the time their entrees arrived, they had run out of small talk.

The sight of Kim barely in her dress stirred through Kerry’s developing rigor and briefly warmed her through. The wine and the much-missed kindness in Kim’s voice left a lump behind her throat that made her eyes shine.  

Kim was likewise charmed by Kerry’s simplicity and seeming lack of expectation.  Her calmness tonight felt solid to Kim, trustworthy.  

Kim raised her fork to tuck into the smoked duck ravioli in cream sauce.  Kerry pulled a willing hank of linguine through the carbonara, twirling it deftly against her spoon.  ‘Linguine... little tongues,’ she thought to herself, shivering slightly; Kim was definitely looking at her like she had used to.  Kerry spread her shoulders back in an unconscious response.  Kim felt Kerry catch her glance and felt herself swell slightly against her dress.  Neither of them wanted to speak or break the fragile moment.  But even more, neither wanted the responsibility of making the first move.  

Coincidence saved them; when the check came, they reached for it at the same time and soft fingertips met soft fingertips at the edge of the small leather folder.  Kerry paused, surprised, and Kim pulsed her hand against Kerry by sheer force of habit, before she took the small folio and tossed in a credit card.  

“My invite, Dr. Weaver.”

“Unnecessarily gallant of you, Dr. Legaspi.  But thank you, very much.”

The slip came back, dishes were cleared, espresso was finished, and nothing remained but the ending.  Kim’s small bladder meant that she broke the silence, excusing herself with a murmur.  Kerry rubbed her temples in doubt.  

When Kim returned, she placed the warmth of her palm briefly on the center of Kerry’s back as she went to take her seat.  She remained standing, though, saying, “Or perhaps we should go?”

Kerry stood.  “You’re right, Kim.  I’ll walk you to your car.”  
  



End file.
